


Mr. Storyteller

by SilviaKundera



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-19
Updated: 2003-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilviaKundera/pseuds/SilviaKundera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marcus Flint sits down and plays his hand again and again.<br/>[Written after Book 4]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr. Storyteller

_I feel a story coming on  
A chance to raise a few questions_  
\- Human Drama

 

 **A Tragic Love Story**

 

Take One

 

So you bump into this guy one day, coming out of Hooch's office, and you know he's not in your year, but that's about it, and so when he looks up with this stupid expression on his face that you can't even read and says, "Oh, hi," you say, "Watch where you're fucking _going_."

You don't think of him again, because why would you, and you're late for breakfast, and Pucey will save you a biscuit, probably, but not if Terence wants it.

Terence eats too damn much, and you always tell him that he'll never be a Seeker because he won't fit on a broom at this rate. You're full of it, because he'll be on the team because _you'll_ be on the team this year, you know it. They _want_ you, Snape _told_ you, and you know who you're bringing.

"Who'll make Gryffindor, do you think?" Pucey says.

"No one good up for them this year, " Terence says, and you nod sharply, and he grins because you agreed. He's so easy to please, and that's why you like him.

"Next year, though," Pucey says, "I hear there might be trouble."

"Next year is next _year_ ," you remind him, and the set of your mouth settles the conversation. "Bit more worry needed about _this_ Cup, don't you think?"

"Right," Pucey says, and returns to his sausage.

* * *

The tosser is goddamned _right_ about next year, but you're not worried, because if someone's a problem you'll take them out. It's that simple.

You remember their Keeper, vaguely, from the hall that time, and he gave you a bruise, the little bastard, so you cock your head at a Beater and he's met with a bludger.

"Lay _off_ ," their captain says, whizzing over just above your head on his clunky, second hand broom, and you sneer back at him.

Medi-wizards scramble to the center of the field, and then it's game on again, and you win.

You always do.

* * *

You're walking past the infirmary, because it's on the way to Snape's rooms -- you borrowed some stink weed yesterday, and he wants it back or it'll be detention -- and that Keeper is shuffling out the door, waving cheerfully back at some git still bedded down.

He says, "Good game", and you say, "I thought it was pretty shitty, actually," because it _was_ , and you don't even know what to make of this kid. He's so damn friendly.

"You weren't even _there_ for it," you add, because, well, you're not exactly sure why.

"I asked for a play by play," he grins, and you really don't know.

You start to walk away, and he's at your heels like some mutt.

"You're just _fantastic_ ," he blurts out, like he just can't contain himself, and you consider punching him, except if he cries you know you won't be able to stop.

"Oh, really?" you say, and he nods, and you shove him into brick to shut him up, and he finally does, thank goodness.

"Got caught up," you say to Snape, and it's good that you didn't need those twenty house points, because the seventh years would kill you.

You'll be able to take them in about six months, you know, even though you're only a third year, but right now you have to watch yourself. You serve detention like a good little boy. You don't talk back.

You wait.

* * *

The Keeper's name is Oliver Wood, and he's _good_ \-- surprisingly so. He's not good enough to steal a game from you, no, but he's good enough that you went and learned his name, and you haven't forgotten it either.

You tend to forget things a lot.

He says to you, one afternoon in the hallway, passing by and placing a hand on your arm, and smiling when you shrug it off, "I'm going for captain. You know, not now, but-"

"Great, " you say, and don't mean it.

"So, I bet you are too, right?" he says, all bright and shining sweat on his face, and you want to say, "You don't know anything _about me_ , you fucking poof," except _of course_ you're going for captain.

You mutter, "Yeah," and bustle into the nearest classroom. Because it's you, and they'll believe it, you say you got lost.

* * *

You make captain fifth year, and think _finally_ and, "Hey, maybe next year, kid, " except then you're out on the field, and he's waving his arms and all the little goody-two shoe's heads are watching his every move, and you don't know how he does it. You really don't.

It's like he _plans_ this.

"Hey, look, your little stalker's coming over to have a look see," Pucey snickers, and you're going to beat the _shit_ out of him later, and he knows it, can see it in your face, and shuts right up, real quick. Too little, too late.

* * *

"Come 'ere, come _on_ ," and Wood is tugging on your sleeve like there's an elongating charm on it, and he needs a new rug. "Marcus, _Marcus_."

You want him to stop with your name, because everyone calls you Flint except him, and it's weird, so you follow him back through the south tower door, and he shuts the door behind you.

He says, "We _did_ it, both of us," and sort of stumbles, and then he's kissing you, and he's probably never done it before, because it's so messy and awkward, though maybe it's just that you're not kissing back.

You're so shocked you don't do anything, just stand there and let him put his tongue in your mouth. You stand and your shoulders are cold from the wind coming in from the window behind you, and you think, "My shoulders are cold," and then you grab the front of his shirt and it rips, and you draw a hand back, fisted, and shove it up into his ribs.

He's not kissing you anymore, and he's got blood on his teeth, because you hit him there too, immediately after, and then you breathe, because you hadn't been, not when he was touching you.

You say "I don't-", and you breathe, and you leave, very quickly, from the same door you came in.

Because you don't know what he wants from you, but whatever it is, he can't get it.

 

 **A Tragic Love Story**

 

Take Two

So you bump into this guy one day, coming out of Hooch's office, and you know he's not in your year, but that's about it, and so when he looks up with this stupid expression on his face that you can't even read and says, "Oh, hi," you say, "Watch where you're fucking _going_."

"Watch where _you're_ going," he snits, and he's so dead. He's a dead man, and he doesn't even realize it.

"That kid is _dead_ ," you tell Pucey, pointing him out over there, hunched beside Weasley's skinny shoulders, and Pucey squints.

"He's not even in our year," Pucey says.

And you say, "I _know_ ," but Terence is shaking his head.

"McGonagall will have your balls," Terence says, and you say McGonagall can go fuck herself, and then Dumbledore looks right over at you, because that old geezer may be a crackpot like your father says he is, but he also knows everything.

You try to look really very sorry, and he holds your gaze for a minute, but doesn't say a word.

You think it might a good idea, at least for now, to let the kid live.

* * *

"I guess I wasn't watching," you say a week or so later, and knock your shoulder into his, and his books to the floor.

You don't speak -- keep on going -- the week after that and the week after _that_ , but you know he knows it's about that first time still. A Slytherin marks well every slight and grievance -- that's what the prefect said after your Sorting, and you try to mind it.

He has the most pointy shoulders, and it feels like they bite back, and they leave _bruises_ , but you keep doing it. There's something about pride, expectations, and a lesson mixed up somewhere in there, but mainly you're just a creature of habit.

* * *

"Maybe you should lay off Wood, you know," Terence says during a quiz in Charms that you're both going to fail anyway. It's offhand in that way that you know it's _not_ offhand at all, and he's been thinking about bringing this up for maybe a month, but had to talk it up to himself first before trying to talk _you_ into it.

You consider maybe saying that there's not a plant mentioned _on_ this quiz, except you're stupid but not _that_ stupid, and Marcus Flint is a straight out and forward fellow, if he's anything. And you just happen to be Marcus Flint. So.

"Maybe you should keep out of it," you suggest, "Wood's got plenty of his own friends," and lean forward halfway into the second sentence, so that you're breathing against the side of his face. "He doesn't need mine."

"I'm not-" Terence says, startled, and you pull just slightly back. "I didn't mean -- it's just that Snape _said_ , he said we have to watch ourselves this week, because we need everyone to beat Ravenclaw, and if you get _suspended_ -"

You think maybe Wood can have him. "Let _me_ worry about that."

* * *

Wood isn't looking where he's going -- he almost never is, eyes scanning over little bits of parchment -- and you snatch the day's bit out between his fingers. He keeps walking for two steps before he notices, and you can't help but laugh.

"Give it _back_ ," he says, and now you've got his attention.

"The word is that you're talking about going to--" you start to say, and then notice, "Wait, these are _plays_?"

" _Yes_ ," he mutters, and makes a grab for the parchment, and you let him have it because it's got to be worthless anyway. Not the same stupid kid who smacked into you fourteen months or so ago, of course, but he's still a second year.

"Like they'd take one look at them," you say, "Not that they could read it if they _wanted_ to. Got a little brother who's _seven_ with better penmanship than you."

"You do _not_ , " Wood exclaims hotly, and it makes his face get splotchy and red.

"All right, I don't," you admit. "But I could."

He looks like he doesn't want to laugh, but he just might, so he stalks off.

You could follow, but you've got the feeling he won't be telling anyone anything, and that was the point, wasn't it? _Good work_ , you think. _I'm on top of it_.

* * *

You did such good work that you don't think about him again at all until you both make captain, and the thought is, _Hey, Wood made captain_ , and then about the sort of jam you'll be having on your toast at breakfast, and then the six inches you're missing on the Transfiguration essay, and then you're eating and you never think when you're eating, and that's that.

You win the games against Gryffindor because they hold back too much, but you don't especially blame Wood for it; his plays aren't so bad after all.

You lose against Ravenclaw sometimes, and Gryffindor tends to beat them, and _that_ makes no sense, so sometimes you end up thinking a bit. You think of saying, "Hey, so what's with you and Ravenclaw, yeah?" but it's not like Wood would tell you anything, since he's the head of the bloody enemy team.

"Your beaters fly too flow on the right side," you point out, just once, but only because you know Wood, and you know a favor equals a favor. And you think maybe someday you'll need one.

* * *

"I need a favor," you say, before Wood can squawk about being in the _middle_ of something -- because he's _always_ in the middle of something, when is he _not_ in the middle of something, and yes, "something" means those beyond idiotic diagrams he keeps making on really thick parchment that must be somewhat heavy because he stumbles a little always lugging piles of them around.

It's sixth year, and you and Wood have been absolutely, positively not speaking since the last week of fourth, when you _accidentally_ dropped a Bouncing Bubble Ball in the path of his Seeker, sending her down the entire length of the left wing staircase. (Though he has Potter now, so you honestly don't know what his problem is.)

It's not that you spoke much before, but it wasn't a rule, and now it is. You're _not speaking_.

Except you just did, and he's going to have to do this -- despite the no talking situation -- because he's all honest and good or whatever, which is just fine by you.

* * *

"This is all your fault," he says when you both get detention, and he's probably right but you'd never admit it, at least not out loud, so you tell him to shut the hell up and pick up that Tenderhooks root over there because it's on the list and you'd love to get _out_ of the Forbidden Forest some time this _century_.

"It _is_ ," Wood insists, and he's got some sort of righteous indignation thing going on, stomping about and kicking at logs and small woodland creatures.

"Hey, what did that squirrel ever do to you?" you say, just to see him clench his jaw and fists -- which start to shake a bit.

"I hate you," Wood says, tight voiced, and you're amused. "I mean that, I really mean that."

"That's cute," you remark, like you're talking about the day's lesson, maybe, or the weather. " _Would_ say the feeling's mutual," and you watch him from under your lashes as you bend to retrieve a root from the ground, "except you're not worth the energy."

And then he turns so quick with a sharp left hook, and just _decks_ you, and there's blood on your chin, and on your mouth, and on his hand, still fisted and trembling, and you've got to say that on the scale of hottest things ever, Oliver Wood is suddenly right on top of the list. Right _there_ and watching you, with that red glazed fist that comes up to clutch your shoulder when you kiss him.

* * *

You kiss him again in Pomfrey's office, as she's bustling about in search of a free bed to slap you into. He's got your blood smeared across his mouth, and it's not as swollen as yours, but it's getting there.

You say, "That's nice," and you're not sure if he can hear you because you say it all low in your throat, but then you mainly just said it to say it, and not for him especially, so that doesn't particularly matter.

You kiss Wood again, quick and messy, in the corridor after all the lights are out and Flinch is lurking about, and it's even hotter because he might catch you.

You kiss him again when you _lose_ the match, and he's high with it, all glassy eyed and warm, wet mouth, and he's worth it because his fingernails are digging into the insides of your wrists and he _hit_ you -- you'll never forget that.

"Tell me you cheated," you mutter, and he grins and tells you he didn't, and you knew that, but you decide to believe they cheated anyway, or at least claim it in the Great Hall come morning, shouting accusations from the Slytherin table to watch Wood's eyes narrow and his voice boom back that you're lying dogs, all of you.

You kiss him again after his morning practice, yanking him beneath the field stands as soon as the players have shuffled off, and admit to watching--spying--same difference just a little, and he's almost pissed enough to not kiss you back, and you like him best that way.

You kiss him and think _this is crazy, this is crazy_ and you whisper it one afternoon into his mouth and he bites at yours and draws back.

"Probably," he says and, "You're such a _prick_ , Flint," and he's right on both accounts, absolutely, but you've been thinking.

* * *

"I've heard rumors," Snape murmurs, drawing himself up and ruffling his drooping black robes. It's too much like primping, and you hold in a snicker. "Pray, tell me that you have not been consorting with a, er, _lesser_ crowd as of late?"

You add a pinch of grasshopper belly, and Snape pauses, before supplying a name. "A certain... Mr. Wood?"

"No, he's all right," you say, shrugging down at your cauldron.

You've been thinking: the both of you, you're not so different after all.

* * *

You're not so different at all, except he knows what he's up to, and you don't, apparently, because he's _fifteen_ , and it just so happens that he has all of the attention span of Pucey on fourteen sugar quills.

You don't see Wood for two days, and you're joking, and you say, "This other bloke, what's his name?" and you must not have expected him to do anything but shake his head and laugh, because when he says, "I don't think I should tell you that," you just.

stop.

"I thought you knew," he says, and that's the stupidest thing you've ever heard, and those two _stupid_ prats who tag along after Malfoy are barely past vegetable, and they're in your _house_ , so you've heard a fuck of a lot of things to compare it to.

"I didn't," you say, which is completely unnecessary, but for last words you suppose they'll do. You're not thinking especially clearly at the time.

 

 **A Tragic Love Story**

 

Take Three

So you bump into this guy one day, coming out of Hooch's office, and you know he's not in your year, but that's about it, and so when he looks up with this stupid expression on his face that you can't even read and says, "Oh, hi," you say, "Do I know you?"

"I've seen you out on the field," he says, with too wide eyes, which are really sort of unsettling, so you watch McGonagall give a tongue lashing to some Hufflepuff down the hall.

"Um, what?" you say, because the Hufflepuff had looked fairly normal from that one side, but now that she's turned there's the _extra head_ , and you think that's just about the coolest thing you've seen all month. "Sure."

"Hey, thanks!" he chirps, and you realize you just agreed to something, and you don't know what that something was, and he's not even a _Slytherin_.

"Get the hell back-" you start, but he's gone.

* * *

You think you can out run him the next time without actually running, and march towards your house table with your chin high and your shoulders stiff. You're wrong.

"I'm going to be a Keeper," he says quickening his steps to match yours, and well that's just fascinating, you bet, except that you _don't care_.

"Do you think we could get time in the morning?" he continues, hands flapping about, making gestures that might resemble a bludger, or maybe a goal post, or possibly an elephant. "Because Ravenclaw's got it at half past seven, but if we're out at the grass by six - and I'm completely a morning person, don't know about you, but."

"What?" you say, and shake your head a little, because you think it's buzzing, and sure you just _were_ a first year, but you're not anymore and you hate them already.

"Practice," he says, and grins.

"Practice," you repeat, like if you just say what he's saying, it'll start to mean something.

You think you know what he means, but he _can't_ mean that, because, well, _you_ can't. They'd beat your ass for it.

You start to tell him that, but then how do you go about _saying_ it without sounding like a sissy. You realize you can't, and maybe that should tell you something.

* * *

You work with him a few times, because it _shuts him up_ \-- not in the actual complete silence way, but at least he takes a breath once in a while.

He hauls out large rolls of Never Fade Fabric and has you draw arrows and directions, so he can study them before bed or during class or whenever it is that he has free time -- you wouldn't know.

The exercises are easy, and you're just copying what someone showed _you_ , but he gets better and you feel like maybe that means you _can_ be captain next year. It feels real, suddenly.

You just need to ditch the dead weight, because palling around with his type can't possibly be good for you.

* * *

"McGongall's supposed to be the Gryffindor head, right?" Oliver spits out, rounding you into a corner in the middle of the walkway, with everyone looking.

You don't know what field you're going into someday, when your broom days are over, but you decide, instantly, that it will be one in which you can have people killed.

"Except she pulls me out of class today," Oliver continues, hands at the sides of your head, pressed hard into the brick, "and gives me one of those 'talking to's, like I haven't memorized them already. That women knows _nothing_ about Quidditch -- I'm telling you! And I said, 'Look, we're _serious_ about this, you know? This _is_ a goal and everything, and we use our minds, we do, and we'll be out there every Saturday morning, working at it. It's a _commitment_.' " He's exasperated, like he usually only gets when you're on about Muggles. "It's not like she can _stop_ us," he says.

And you say, "Right."

* * *

"I got Keeper," he says, and you jostle him a little, and smack the wall with your fist and knee, because _you did that_. It's like it's happening to _you_.

"I got captain," he says, and you shake the _hell_ out of him, and until his head is flopping and his voice is rubbery and his arms are flailing. It's like it's happening to you because it _is_ happening to you - you're in this together.

"My team's hand-picked this year, _finally_ , and that was the problem before," he says, "We're gonna go all the way this year, I can _feel_ it," and you don't think so, you _know_ they won't, and so you buy him a Butterbeer or ten over at Hogsmeade.

* * *

You both drink Butterbeer until you're sick with it, until your stomachs are rolling and heaving, until your foreheads are slick with sweat and pressed together.

He says, "And this was a good idea _because_..?" and you think that's a fabulous question -- brilliant, even -- and you smack your head against the nice wooden counter at the bar, letting it rest there as he rests his cheek on the back of your neck.

You think that you'd kiss him, any moment now, except the problem is -- and then you think, wait, so what's the problem? And _there's_ the problem the voice in your head says.

But there's _no_ problem, not really, because you want it. And you can't remember a time when anyone ever told you anything you wanted was wrong.

* * *

He kisses you back immediately that first time, and then empties his stomach right into your lap and onto your sagging arms, and then kisses you back the next time a bit slow -- like he's just catching up -- when you're dousing the both of you with water in the alleyway, too queasy to remember the charm and hands too unsteady to perform it anyway.

You gag on the taste in your mouth -- don't even want to _think_ about his mouth -- and rub your temples very slowly, muttering, "Let's never do this again."

"Oh," Oliver says, very soft.

You don't get why he seems to think that pouring your guts out onto pavement is a jolly good time.

"And we're drinking a sip or two of this each," you say, and proffer the pitcher, hand pressed to his chest to hold off further encounters until he can at least _breathe_ without you keeling over.

You drink, and make him drink -- he sputters a bit -- and then press him back into an unoccupied portrait when you part ways at his dormitory, sliding your tongue along his teeth and against the tip of his tongue.

" _Oh_ ," he says, again.

Wood, you think, has always been a bit off.

* * *

He's more than a _bit_ off, you begin to think, when he begins tripping over every object in his path.

"Sorry, sorry," he says.

"Just _quit_ it," you say, "I'm trying to _show_ you something."

You put a hand on his shoulder, kneading some tight muscle that Pomfrey should take a wand to, and he stumbles over a pebble or something. You didn't even see anything there.

* * *

"You know -" Terence remarks, tossing the Quaffle up towards the clouds and chuckling as the second years duck to the ground, hands clamped over their necks.

"Your boyfriend's fucking annoying," Pucey supplies, and smirks as a passing Gryffindor third year, nearly struck in the back of her head, squacks in outrage.

And you say, "Tell me about it," before you think about what you're saying, and then you _do_.

* * *

"Look, this is stupid," you say, and you always thought Wood was maybe not all that quick about things, but he seems to figure you out, at least this time, right away.

He hunches his shoulders together and nods.

"You're right," Oliver says.

It's not that you're not supposed to, because you do whatever, anything -- anything you feel like at all. It's just that you're both, you're too different -- that's it, and you don't have time for things with special labels. Maybe that's how _his_ house operates, but.

Not yours.

And then he draws himself up, all big and tall, and snaps, "I let them through, you know, when I'm at the goal?" and it's almost pathetic, so you laugh.

"I don't play- I, I let you score on me," he says, like he's admitting something -- even goes on to hold his breath.

"Sure you do," you say, and check through Flitwick's office on your way back for Monday's pop quiz.

* * *

At the game he isn't watching you, and you're not watching him, and the bludgers are racing furious and sky-bolt quick. One almost grazes your elbow, and you squeeze the broom with both legs, tuck yourself in.

He notes you when you approach, quaffle tucked under your arm, and tips his head in greeting. "And I just felt sorry for you, " you say, "So I guess we're even."

He tips his head again, and you throw the ball at the same angle as you always did before. You threw it nearly straight with a swift, downward curve, and it scored, and you won, and everyone went home happy.

Oliver stops it without blinking, dead on. His smile is wide and quiet.

 

 **The Happy Ending**

 

Which Comes When They Are Older And Wiser And Life Is Very Much Different Than It Was Back Then

 

So you play Quidditch for eight years, and maybe learn a little magic. You mean to leave before you do, but you don't mind hanging around an extra year, because hell if you have any idea of what you're gonna to do afterward.

You don't end up doing much, just tending the front of a specialty charms shop and sweeping up in the back, and Pucey owls you once a week, says you should meet him at the pub, and you come a few times, and then stop.

"Where've you _been_ , Flint?" he sends, and his owl pecks at your hand with its crooked little beak, and you're just waiting for the teams to start up again, when people feel all right about gathering. You're been _biding your time_ , you think, but send back nothing.

Your hands are hard because you touch wood more than people, and you take them and the rest of your body for a spin over the Hogwarts lake just before nightfall, bouncing the quaffle off the ripples, and smacking it towards imaginary goals. You can stick your toes in the water and zoom forward, so you do it. You can do just about anything there because it's all still and quiet. School isn't in session because people are dying.

"I thought you'd be fighting," Oliver says, and you didn't hear him come up, so it's good that it's only him and not someone or something else.

"You've got to be _kidding_ ," you answer, and watch the water turn darker as the sun fades out, and you think that he must be, he probably is, except he's watching you all quiet, with his head tilted funny.

"I don't care who wins," you say, because either side will have a team you can join, and you can play, and wake up in the morning to do what you've always done. You have nothing to fight for.

"I do," Oliver says, and his broom drops down next to yours, like you'll help him think or something. "But they'll be fine," he finishes, finally, and you can agree with that -- that's probably how it'll go.

"So are we playing a game or what?" you say, and toss the Quaffle straight towards his head.

He barely ducks in time, but his smile is so big, bigger than you've ever smiled in your whole life, and he rolls his eyes before muttering, "We're both Seeker, and Keeper, and Beater, then? With the poles and snitch and bludgers we don't have?"

And you say, "Sounds good to me," bare your teeth, sharp against your lip, and grab a hold of the back of his head, to better watch his mouth while he murmurs, "All right," very soft.

You and him, you're on the same page here, you're pretty sure, because you and him, you're _here_ , and not somewhere else. And so he presses his mouth to yours and you both wobble.

You fall into a clap of ice-cold water, shiver, and touch mouths again, because the brooms will be there, waiting, when you're done.


End file.
